This FAQ tries to quantify the effects of stats in this game and avoid terms
like better, worse, less and more when it can.

This FAQ tries to explain how the choice you make in creating your character
will affect your character.

This FAQ generally focuses on how to build your character to allow for the
easiest time getting through the game.

This isn’t a walk through.

This isn’t for role-players (unless you like to know the underlying equations
and math that govern the game).

This FAQ isn’t 100% finished.

Some of the information may not be correct. If you find something inaccurate
or plain wrong, please let me know by emailing me. If you have something to
contribute such as giving insight to how a skill works, how to make the most
of a skill, your own build theory, etc. I will review and add it if it
applies. If you think there should be something presented in this FAQ that
another FAQ has not already provided just let me know and I’ll research it and
add to the FAQ if I can. So, please feel free to email me at Myk@accesswave.ca

Novice FAQ Users [A0001] —————————————————–

If you need to find a section simply reference the code on the right in the
table of contents [00000] and select the “find” or “search” function on your
browser/text editor (crtl-f is the default for most browsers and text
editors). Put in the code associated with the topic and hit the search/find
command and it will bring you to the beginning of that section.

The Character Creation Process [C0000] ***************************************

When you first start the game you’ll be asked to choose a race. As you
continue your escape through the sewers you’ll be asked to choose a birth sign
and finally near the end you’ll be asked to choose your class. When you
attempt to exit the sewer you’ll be prompted to confirm your race, birth sign
and class. This is a good place to make a permanent save game as it allows you
to customize your characters starting stats without playing the tutorial over
again.

Race [C0001] —————————————————————–

Each race has a total of 320 starting attribute points; however, they are
distributed differently depending on the race. Each race will also have a
total of 45 skill points; again these points are distributed based on race.
Lastly, each race has its own special abilities and resistances.

Birth Sign [C0002] ———————————————————–

You’ll be able to choose one birth sign for your character. Each birth sign
comes with a unique bonus and some come with drawbacks to compensate from
their bonus.

Class [C0003] —————————————————————-

Your character’s class is made up your character’s specialization, favored
attributes and major skills. You’re presented to select these in the order
listed above.

Specialization [C0004] ——————————————————-

There are 3 types of skill specializations which are Combat, Mage and Stealth.
Each specialization governs 7 skills. Skills that are part of your
specialization will increase 33% faster than minor skills and will receive a
+5 starting bonus.

You will then be asked to select two favored attributes. This will give you
a +5 bonus in each of the selected attributes.

Major Skills [C0006] ———————————————————

You will now choose 7 major skills for you’re character. This is the most
important part of your character creation. Your major skills will determine
how you will level. Gaining any combination of 10 major skill levels will
allow you to increase you’re characters level.

Your major skills will start with a +20 bonus making their starting value at
least 25 and no more than 45. Major skills also have the benefit of increasing
65% faster than minor skills. If a skill happens to be a major skill and a
specialized skill then it will increase at a rate of 122% compared to minor
skills.

Any skills that aren’t selected as major skills will be your minor skills.

Character Level: You will gain 1 character level for every 10 major skills
you increase. As your character level increases the difficulty of the game
increases.

Health: Your health is 2x your endurance plus an increase of 10% of your
endurance value when you gain a character level. There are spells, potions
and enchanted equipment that can further increase your health.

Your fatigue regeneration rate is 10 per second while you’re not running.
The following actions will drain fatigue: Jumping, dodging, attacking, power
attacking, blocking (at novice skill rank) and holding an arrow pulled back
(at novice skill rank).

Increasing Your Level [D0002] ————————————————

To increase your character’s level you must gain any combination of 10 major
skill levels. You can only raise your level by sleeping in a bed. Once you’ve
gained 10 major skills, all skill levels your earn after that will counted
towards your next level and applied to your next level attribute bonuses.

When you sleep and gain a level several things will happen. Your health will
increase by 10% of your endurance value, you can choose 3 attributes to
increase, loot from enemies will become better, quest rewards may get better,
the locks on doors and chests will increase in difficulty and the enemies you
fight will have gotten stronger.

When enemies do get stronger their abilities, damage and health increases at a
fix rate relative to your level. It has nothing to do with your skill or
attribute totals.

When you raise your level you will be able to choose 3 of your attributes
increase. If you choose to increase an attribute the minimum it can increase
is 1 point and the maximum it can increase is 5 points. The amount of skill
points (whether its major or minor does not matter) you increase that are
governed by that attribute is what determines how many points you can increase
it by.

Skill Points Earned Attribute Bonus
0 x1
1-4 x2
5-7 x3
8-9 x4
10+ x5

The following is a chart to help explain how your character levels up and
how leveling your skills will affect your attribute bonus.

In review:
– Major and minor skills contribute equally to your attribute bonus.
– Unspent attribute bonuses will not carry over to your next level.
– If you earn more than 10 skill points for an attribute the additional
skill points will not be carried over to the next level.
– You begin earning your skill points for your next character level as soon
as your earn 10 major skill points for your current character level.

So, don’t earn more skill points then you need to get your x5 bonus, get your
x5 bonus in at least two attributes (3 if your not increasing luck) and level
your minor skills before you level your major skills.

Attributes [DA000] ———————————————————–

There are 8 attributes and each attributes governs 3 of your skills except
luck which governs no skills.

Strength [DA001] ————————————————————-

Strength governs Blade, Blunt and Hand-to-Hand. Strength will increase the
amount you can carry by 5 per strength point, your fatigue. Melee weapons will
receive a 0.66% damage increase for each point of strength you receive.
Strength does affect hand-to-hand (see the skill listing for more details).
Effects that increase your strength above 100 will continue to increase your
fatigue and the amount of weight you can carry, but it will not continue to
increase your melee damage.

Strength is important for those who will be dealing melee damage, if your not
dealing melee damage you can put this attribute lower on you priority list.

Strength does contribute to the same effects that its governing skills affect.

Intelligence [DA002] ———————————————————

Intelligence governs Alchemy, Conjuration and Mysticism. Intelligence will
increase your magicka by 2 points per intelligence point. Effects that raise
your intelligence will continue to increase you magicka. See the “Magicka
Regeneration Rate” section for an explanation on how intelligence affects your
MRR.

Intelligence can be placed at a low priority because of the sigil stones
that provide an enchant that give +50 magicka (you can get six of these) and
that completly dwarfs the +100 magicka that 50 intelligence would provide you.
You can get the +50 magicka until your at least level 17 though. If you play
the early game and want the most magicka as quickly as possible then you’ll
prioritize intelligence higher.

There is an estimate on how willpower can be predicted but it isn’t 100%
accurate. This chart uses willpower set to 0 as the reference point and the

fractions refer to how much it will reduce the time by.

Willpower Time
0 –
50 1/2
100 1/4
150 1/5
200 1/6

Willpower does not increase or decrease your character’s spell resistance
nor does it have any affect of the skills it governs.

Willpower has the most benefit when you have a large magicka total and the
least benefit with a small magicka total. So if you plan to have an abundace
on magicka then prioritize willpower high, and if you don’t then prioritize it
low.

Agility [DA004] ————————————————————–

Agility governs Security, Sneak and Marksman. Agility will increase the damage
dealt by bows by 0.66% per agility point, contribute to your fatigue score and
increase your resistance to knock downs (balance). Effects that raise your
agility above 100 do not continue to increase your damage with bows, but will
continue to increase your fatigue score. It is unknown whether it will
continue have an affect on your ability to withstand knock downs.

Agility is good for preventing knock downs and increasing bow damage.
Preventing knock downs is important for melee characters. You can ignore the
benefit of increased bow damage with agility if your character doesn’t bother
with ranged combat or if they have strong destruction magicka.

As far as I can tell it has no affect on security or sneak. Agility does
contribute to the same effect that marksman affects.

Speed [DA005] —————————————————————-

Speed governs Acrobatics, Athletics and Light Armor. Speed will increase the
rate at which your character moves. Each point you put into speed will
increase your movement speed by 0.44%. Effects that increase your speed
above 100 will continue to increase your speed at a rate of 0.30%.

Speed is most effective if your play style is geared towards ranged combat or
playing keep away from your foes. Your play style will effect how you want to
prioritize.

Speed does not affect light armor or acrobatics. It does contribute to the
same effect that athletics affects.

Speed does not influence the skills it governs.

Endurance [DA006] ————————————————————

Endurance governs Armorer, Block and Heavy Armor. Endurance contributes to
your fatigue and determines your health. Your health is 2x your endurance plus
an increase of 10% of your endurance value (if you increase your choose to
increase your endurance during the character level your new endurance value
will apply to your health increase). The game will always round down when it
gets a fraction when determining the health increase. Anytime your endurance
increases you receive an additional 2 health to your total. So when you gain a
character level and raise your endurance by 5 you will get another 10 health
to your base (this is because your health is 2x your endurance). If you used
an effect that increased you endurance by 25, you would receive an additional
50 health for as long as that effect lasted. Effects that increase your
endurance beyond 100 will continue to provide benefit.

Endurance is the most important attribute for any character class. It gets
priority because of the +10% health increase on character level up is not
retroactive.

Endurance does not affect the skills it governs.

Personality [DA007] ———————————————————-

Personality governs: Illusion, Mercantile and Speechcraft. This affects the
way people you interact with people. The higher your personality the greater
the starting NPC disposition is. Every 4 personality points will give you 1
extra starting disposition point.

Personality is essentially as poor attribute because its impact on the game is
minimal. If necessary a low personality can normally be compensated for easily
through bribes or spells.

Luck [DA008] —————————————————————–

Luck governs: Nothing.

The following information was provided entirely by Scy046.

Luck affects how your skill performs. If luck is greater than 50 then all your
skill will gain a bonus and if its less than 50 than all your skills will
suffer. The formula looks like:

Skill + (Luck-50) * 0.4 = Modified Skill Level (<=100). Using 50 points of luck as our reference point we will see the effect of increasing and decreasing luck will have on our skills.

The left most fighter mage columns show how players might prioritize their
attribute distribution if they are planning to stay on a low level or opting
not to take the +50 magicka sigil stones. If you plan to take as many +50
magicka sigil stones as you can your prioritization may look like what shown
on the right.

Remember, there are quite a few things that will affect your character’s
prioritization of attributes and the above is just two examples to give you an
some ideas. If your plan on max all your attributes it doesn’t really matter
as long as you get your endurance to 100 ASAP.

The bonus starting magicka is great and the resist disease is a minor plus.
The 25 point weakness to fire, frost and shock hurts the character. Good
intelligence and willpower coupled with the great magicka bonus makes the High
Elf good for a mage build.

Do I choose Bretonor High Elf? [FA000] —————————————

Both the Bretonand the High Elf are vying to fill the mage class. The
Brenton’s 50 point resistance to magicka greatly out classes the High Elf’s
75 point resistance to disease. The advantage The High Elf has over the
Bretonis the 50 extra starting magicka, but the High Elf also comes with a
clear disadvantage and that the 25-point weakness to fire, frost and shock.
Unless you absolutely want to have largest magicka pool then the Bretonis
the easy choice. There is very little you’re going to want to cast with the
High Elf that you can’t with the Brenton.

The Orc fits his race stereotype and is built for melee combat. They have a
good activated ability that can allow you’re character to pull through some
situations that you may not be able to otherwise. The +25 magicka resistance
is a good plus too.

The starting attributes and activated ability make the Redguard a superb melee
character. The Adrenaline Rush ability is phenominal.

Do I choose Orc or Redguard? [FA001] —————————————–

The Redguard’s 75 point resistance to disease and poison is on par with the
Orc’s 25 point resistance to magicka. However, the Redguard does get an edge
in starting attributes and Adrenaline Rush easily outclasses Berserk.

The Lady (+10 to willpower and endurance), The Thief (+10 to agility,
+10 speed and +10 to luck), The Steed (+20 to speed) and The Warrior
(+10 to strength and endurance) are useful when trying to reach your goal
attributes as quickly as possible. If you plan to max your attributes (even if
you’re not leveling luck or personality) there is no reason not to take The
Thief birth sign.

Atronach [G0002] ————————————————————-

As pointed out by Thomas “Sajin” Bergmann FAQ (Hard Character Guide at
GameFAQs.com) this is an interesting sigh. You get +150 to your magicka,
+50 spell absorption (50% of the spells that hit you deal no damage and are
converted into magicka), but you lose your ability to regenerate magicka. To
regenerate magicka you will need to drink potions, use magicka shrines or
absorbing spell damage. Sleeping or resting will not recover your magicka.

A work around is to use your Conjuration magicka to summon a ghost and turn it
against you by hitting it 3 times. This will allow you to regenerate your
magicka when you need to. This however can prove to be tedious method of
restoring your magicka.

The Atronach sign does prove even more troublesome with builds (see further
into the FAQ) that plan on not leveling past a certain point because if you do
continue to level your major skills but not sleeping (preventing you from
leveling) then you lose access to that method of regenerating your magicka.

The Mage [G0003] ————————————————————-

I generally like this sign the best because its +50 magicka with no strings.
It can be applied to either mage or melee that doesn’t need the attribute
bonuses.

The Ritual [G0004] ———————————————————–

The ability “Mara’s Word” restores 200 health instantly. This ability is
pretty good, but is a once per day trick. The other ability is “Blessed Word”
which is a reusable spell that costs 40 magicka. It will turn up to level 25
undead creatures. This will cause them to flee. The ritual is most useful for
characters who will be staying in the lower levels as the restore health will
equate to a free full heal.

The Useless Signs [G0005] —————————————————-

The Tower, The Shadow, The Serpent, The Lover and The Lord are all useless
signs not suitable for building are best character. These are all generally
are not acceptable because they are underpowered compared to other signs or
can be replaced with low level spells or potions.

The Apprentice gives +100 magicka and a 100 point weakness to magicka. Similar
to the mage but is 100 point weakness to magica really worth an extra 50
magicka?

The Lover recieves the ability “Lover’s Kiss” which casts Paralyze for 10

seconds on touch and damage fatigue 120 to self. This is a once per day
ability.

The Lord gives the ability “Blood of the North” which restores 15 health for
6 seconds for 50 magicka. A good spell very early in the game and isn’t a
once per day ability. However, it quickly becomes inadequate and comes with a
25-point weakness to fire 24-7.

The Shadow gives your character “Moon Shadow” which casts Invisibilty for
60 seconds on self once per day.

The Tower gives two abilites. Tower Key which allows you to cast open average
lock on target and Tower Warden which gives you 5% reflect damage for 120
seconds. Each ability can be activated once per day.

Your skills are the various abilities that your character has his disposal.
The more your character uses their abilities the more proficient they become
with that ability.

As a reminder minor, specialized, major and major specialized skills earn
different amounts of experience points each time an action for a skill that is
performed successfully. Specialized skills increase 33.3% faster than minor
skills; major skills increase 66.6% faster than minor skills and major
specialized skills increase 122.2% faster than minor skills.

The reason why a major skill levels faster than a minor skill is because they
require different amounts of EXP (experience points) to level. Specialized
skills require 75% less experience than minors skills; major skills require
60% less EXP than minor skills and major specialized skills require 45% less
EXP than minor skills.

As you level your skills you will notice that you will receive a message when
you earn 25, 50, 75 and 100 skill levels. These are because you’ve reached
the skill rank of an apprentice, journeyman, expert or master. When you earn
these skill ranks you will receive a special bonus that will help you when you
use that skill. When you have earned less than 25 skill levels for a
particular skill you are considered to at a novice skill rank.

Each skill will be given a “Leveling Speed Rank” with 1 being the fastest and
17 being the slowest. Some skills will be given N/A rank meaning I wasn’t able
to accurately estimate a time for leveling that skill.

A “Leveling Difficulty” rating will be given to each skill as well. The
difficulty rating has nothing to do with how much time is required to level
the skill, but the amount of effort required to perform the actions required
to earn EXP for that skill. The ratings are as follows automated, easy,
mediocre and hard. A skill rated as automated will essential require no effort
at all, easy won’t require much effort beyond pushing a button repeatedly,
mediocre will require some effort like moving around and possibly gathering
materials and hard will require an extensive and tedious amount of work to
level.

A combat rating and utility rating will also be given to each skill. The
combat rating refers to how often and how effective the skill is in combat.
The utility rating refers to the skills ability to make money, evading combat
situations or solving problems the game world presents to you. Each skill
will be rated as good, mediocre, poor or N/A. Good means that the skills is
used a lot and is effective, mediocre means that skill is either used a lot
but not effective or effective but not used a lot, poor means the skill is
rarely used or not effective and N/A means the skill has no application in
that field.

Each skill is given a chart. The columns are minor, specialized, major and
major specialized (M+S). The two main row headers are #Reps X-X and
T(min) X-X. #Reps X-X means “the number of repetitions require to earn the
EXP for levels X to X” and T(min) means the time in minutes required to earn
the EXP for the levels X to X”. #Reps and T(min) are directed related to each
other.

The table were included as a tool for those who want to know how long it take
and how much work will be require for a particular skill. It can also serve as
a tool to determine how long entire builds may take from start to finish.

If possible I will explain the per point benefits of increasing a skill. I
will also explain the easiest way to level the skill.

Keep in mind that you can always speak to trainers to increase skills you
find too difficulty or time consuming. Training skills can be quite expensive
to do at the higher skill levels and you can only train a total of 5 skill
points per character level.

If you need a complete list of trainers see the “Trainers Guide” by eldin2003
at http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/file/oblivion_trainers.txt

If you want to provide additional information for this you can send me an
email at myk@accesswave.ca.

The estimated time and reps is based on jumping down the mountain at Dark
Fissure (3.3 EXP every 4.4s). There are a few variables that will probably
increase your time such as enemy NPC, loading times and skill with the drill.

Apprentice: You’re able to use normal attacks when jumping or falling.
Journeyman: Dodge. Hold block and press jump to activate a dodge.
Expert: Reduces fatigue loss per jump from 30 to 15 (50%).
Master: Allows you to jump off the surface of water.

Acrobatics will increase your jumping height by ~0.75% per point. Acrobatics
beyond 100 will provide ~0.45% increase per point. Your control of your
direction in the air will also increase as your acrobatics skill increases.
The amount of fall damage you take is not affected by your acrobatics skill.

A great place to level acrobatics is at Dark Fissure. When fast travel to this
location you will start at the top of a mountain. Turn west after you’ve fast
travelled to this location and jump down the mountain. Try to damage on every
jump to get the 3.0 EXP on top of your 0.30 EXP for jumping. It will probably
take you about 5-10 minutes to get feel for it but it’ll come.

A high restoration skill to keep healing yourself will help greatly as you do
this exercise. If you don’t have a good restoration skill and or don’t want to
level it just yet you should hold off until you can use the skill to level
acrobatics.

If you don’t like this drill once you get to skill level 50 you can
continuously dodge which is an easier drill but will take 2-2.5 times longer
to level.

I’ve read that an object or cieling that prevents you from making a full jump
will allow you to increase your acrobatics skill rapidly. I’ve tested this
with store signs and found that my skill wouldn’t increase if I rapidly kept
jumping before the spring after he lands was over. So, as of now I don’t think
this is a good method to rapidly increase the skill.

Acrobatics can be easily leveled by accident. To stop yourself from
unnecessarily jumping around bind the key to something awkward so you’re not
always pushing it when traveling.

Because the gathering process of the indgredients will vary greatly from
player to player its hard to make an estimate on how long this skill takes
to level. When I find a suitable scenario I will post an estimate.

Apprentice: Allows you to recognize 2 of 4 properties of an ingredient.
Journeyman: Allows you to recognize 3 of 4 properties of an ingredient.
Expert: Allows you to recognize 4 of 4 properties of an ingredient.
Master: Allows you to make potions from a single ingredient.

There are no per skill point benefit as far as I know. The number of
ingredients used or the quality has no effect of the amount EXP earned with
this skill.

The easiest way to level this skill is to steal all the food you can find and
make potions. You can also buy ingredients from vendors and sell the end
product back to them for a profit. This skill works with leveling mercantile.

Alchemy can be used to create a wide range of potions that can restore health
to increase stats temporarily.

Alchemy can require a bit of work to level but it doesn’t take that long to do
it.

To reduce the required time to level “Spell Cast Speeds” for more information.

For all mage skills when you receive your apprentice, journeyman, expert and
master skill levels you gain access to higher quality spells some with
entirely new effects.

As your alteration skill increases, the cost of your spells will decrease by
0.85% per point. There is no benefit from raising your skill level above 100.
Your spell potency and effectiveness do not increase with skill. All spells
give the same EXP per successful cast regardless of the effect, cost or
casting time. Mixing two effects from different schools of magicka will not
earn you EXP for both skills at the same time but only one (which every one
it is remains constant).

To quickly level simply cast “Open Very Easy Lock” on easy to very hard locks.
If you can’t easily find a lock you can always go to the arena and cast your
spell on the very hard lock box there. Once your MRR is high enough you will
be able to chain cast these low level spells without running out of magicka.
This will allow you have something keep your cast spell button in place while
you do other thing like eat, sleep, etc.

This school of magic alters the physical environment and objects contained
within. This is useful skill for a mage class player because it will allow you
to create weightless magic armor instead of carrying light or heavy armor
that a low strength character might not be able to do. At apprentice and
beyond you can gain access to feather which will increase the amount of weight
you can carry.

The most useful ability for any class is the open X lock magic spells. At
different levels of mastery one can open locks of increasing difficulty. It
is very useful for low security characters, or people who have trouble with
or simply don’t like the lock picking mini-game.

Apprentice: You’re repair hammers last twice as long.
Journeyman: You can now repair magical equipment.
Expert: You can improve your equipment quality to 125%. This also improves the
weapon damage by 12.5% and durability of the equipment by 25%.
Master: Never breaks repair hammers.

I currently don’t know the per point benefit of increasing the Armorer skill.

Go to the Imperial Prison Sewer. In the sewer there are 4 enemies. Lure the 4
enemies to the sewer exit and just let them beat on you. Just get hit enough
so that at least 1 point of durability is lost on most or all of your armor.
When you’ve achieved that, exit the sewers and repair your armor and re-enter.
When you re-enter the enemies should be right on top of you again.
Alternatively, you can also use the Staff of Everscamp or your Conjuration to
summon enemies. This skill can be leveled along side your block and heavy
armor skills (it may not suitable for light armor because it is governed by a
different attribute).

The amount of durability you repair with each hammer bang does not affect the
amount of EXP you earn.

Wearing as many armor pieces as possible makes this easier. The Heavy Raiment
or Raiment of Valor are not good equipment to use for this exercise. A good
example is to wear exactly what the Imperial Legion wears. You can easily get
this by killing a lone guard (say in the Waterfront district of the Imperial
City) or if your sneak skill will allow, stealing a suit from a sleeping
guard.

Armorer is a skill that will take a bit of effort to level, but the main
benefit is reach at skill level 75. Leveling this skill beyond 75 provides
little benefit. So if you don’t want or need to level this skill anymore then
feel free not to.

This differs from that most FAQs report that Apprentice, Journeyman and
Expert are 25%, 50% and 75% respectively.

Athletics will increase you movement speed by +0.33% for running, +0.04% for
swimming and +0.60% for swimming fast per point while your skill level is 100
or less. When your athletics skill level is above 100 you will still seen
benefits but at a decreased rate. Your new per point benefit is +0.25% for
running, +0.38% for swimming and +.46% for swimming fast. Athletics provides
no gain for walking speed.

The easiest way to level athletics is to find a corner in a safe zone and hit
auto run. If you don’t have an auto run button use an elastic band or complex
series of books to set the thumb stick to go forward.

Its leveling difficulty is automated but it will take about 95 hours as a
minor skill to level from 5 to 100.

The times listed above are assuming you’re constantly hitting something
without breaks. So your actual leveling time may increase greatly.

Novice: You’re power attack does 2.5x more damage than your normal attack.
Apprentice: You’re power attack does 3.0x more damage than your normal attack.
Journeyman: You’re sidestepping (LEFT or RIGHT) power attack that has a
chance to disarm your opponent.
Expert: You’re sweeping (BACK) power attack now has a chance to knockdown.
Master: You’re rushing (FORWARD) power attack now has a chance to paralyze.

For every point in blade you increase you will receive an additional 7.5%
damage bonus from your weapon’s base.

The only way you can increase or decrease the speed of your attacks is by
changing weapon types like using a dagger instead of a sword. None of your
skills or attributes has an affect on the rate at which your character will
attack.

To level your blade skill use a daggers because they are the fastest swinging
blade weapons at 2.5 swings per second. Find a place where there are a lot of
monsters to hit or summon enemies using your Conjuration or Staff of
Everscamp will do fine. Adjusting the slider difficult will also adjust the
health your foes have which will decrease the number of foes you will have to
find or summon.

The time listed is an estimate based on the stats from heavy armor. It simple
assumes that 50% of the hits you take will be blocked and it therefore will
take twice as long to level.

Apprentice: When you block it no longer drains fatigue.
Journeyman: Blocking with a shield or weapon will no longer cause durability
damage. Blocking with your hands will cause your attackers to
recoil but will still do full damage.
Expert: Blocking can now be used like an attack to knock back and stagger
your attackers.
Master: Blocking now has a chance to disarm.

For each point your block increases damage is reduced when you successfully
block an attack.

Go to the Imperial Prison Sewer. In the sewer there are 4 enemies. Lure the 4
enemies to the sewer exit and let them beat on you. When you need low of
health leave, heal and re-enter. Alternatively you may use your Conjuration
magicka or Staff of Everscamp to summon creatures. Try to stay in a corner so
your enemies are generally attacking from the same direction.

The times listed above are assuming you’re constantly hitting something
without breaks. So your actual leveling time may increase greatly.

Novice: You’re power attack does 2.5x more damage than your normal attack.
Apprentice: You’re power attack does 3.0x more damage than your normal attack.
Journeyman: You’re sidestepping (LEFT or RIGHT) power attack that has a
chance to disarm your opponent.
Expert: You’re sweeping (BACK) power attack now has a chance to knockdown.
Master: You’re rushing (FORWARD) power attack now has a chance to paralyze.

For each skill point you receive for blunt you blunt weapon damage increase
7.5% from the weapon’s base.

The only way you can increase or decrease the speed of your attacks is by
changing weapon types like using a axe instead of a two handed mace. None of
your skills or attributes has an affect on the rate at which your character
will attack.

To level your blunt skill use a one handed axe because they are the fastest
swinging blunt weapons at 2.0 swings per second. Find a place where there are
a lot of monsters to hit or summon enemies using your Conjuration or Staff
of Everscamp will do fine. Adjusting the slider difficult will also adjust the
health your foes have which will decrease the number of foes you will have to
find or summon.

Very useful in combat for a magic character, it allows access to powerful
Daedric style weapons and armor at different levels of mastery, as well it
allows you to summon a creature from oblivion to help you fight. In any
situation with multiple enemies, summoning a creature will help move the odds
in your favor. Often if your summoned creature is between you and your
enemies, your enemies will stop and attack it. When this happens it will buy
you time to heal yourself or attack the enemies without reprisal. This is
especially useful against NPCs who have the ability to summon creatures
themselves.

Outside of combat summoning a creature will give you access to a creature that
you can train all your combat abilities on without the need for dungeon
crawling. I personally find that training in your own house will eliminate the
chances of random monsters and animals from nearby from interfering. This
also eliminates the risk of accidentally striking a friendly NPC. For training
purposes you can increase the difficulty slider to the right and increase the
punishment your conjured monster will take.

The times listed above are assuming you’re constantly hitting something
without breaks. So your actual leveling time may increase greatly.

Apprentice, journeyman, expert and master skill levels simply make new spells
available to you.

As your destruction skill increase the cost of your spells will decrease by
0.85% per point.

To level your destruction skill, find a place where there are a lot of
monsters to hit or summon enemies using your Conjuration or Staff of Everscamp
will do fine. Adjusting the slider difficult will also adjust the health your
foes have which will decrease the number of foes you will have to find or
summon.

The primary source of damage output for a mage. This class determines what
kind of damage you can inflict on your enemies. The strength of the spell is
tied into the damage and duration of the spell. Regardless of the damage it
seems that enemies take more damage from shock magic (except of course those
immune or resistant to shock) and although it seems obvious that you would
use a frost spell on a fire elemental enemy more times than not shock will
do equivalent amount or more damage.

Destruction also has spells which reduce the amount of attributes and skills
points your enemies have for set periods of times.

The times listed above are assuming you’re constantly hitting something
without breaks. So your actual leveling time may increase greatly. The attack
speed is assumed to be 2.5 swings per second.

Novice: You’re power attack does 2.5x more damage than your normal attack.
Apprentice: You’re power attack does 3.0x more damage than your normal attack.
Journeyman: You’re sidestepping (LEFT or RIGHT) power attack that has a
chance to disarm your opponent.
Expert: You’re sweeping (BACK) power attack now has a chance to knockdown.
Master: You’re rushing (FORWARD) power attack now has a chance to paralyze.

As you increase your hand-to-hand skill the damage dealt will increases. The
way to calculate hand-to-hand damage is using this formula:

1 + (Skill/100 * Strength/100 * 10)

If either strength or skill is 0 the damage is reduced to 1 regardless of the
other value. The maximum damage you can do with hand-to-hand is 11 per hit.

Like the other melee skills there is no attribute or skill value that will
affect the rate of your attack.

To level your hand-to-hand skill, find a place where there are a lot of
monsters to hit or summon enemies using your Conjuration or Staff of Everscamp
will do fine. Adjusting the slider difficult will also adjust the health your
foes have which will decrease the number of foes you will have to find or
summon.

The times above assume you are getting hit 2.5 times a second without breaks.
Breaks you will need to take to heal and repair are not included. The number
of enemies and the frequency of their attack will also affect the time.

Your armor value of your Heavy Armor increases with your skill at 3.5% per
point for all pieces except the shield and chest piece which increase at 2.0%
per point.

To level your Heavy Armor skill, go to the Imperial Prison Sewer. In the sewer
there are 4 enemies. Lure the 4 enemies to the sewer exit and let them beat on
you. When you have low of health exit the sewer, heal, repair and re-enter.
You can use Conjuration or the Staff of Everscamp to summon your opponents.
You can raise your restoration while leveling this skill as well.

Wearing as many separate armor pieces as possible makes this easier. The Heavy
Raiment or Raiment of Valor are not good pieces of equipment to use for this
exercise. A good example of what to wear is what the Imperial Legion wears.
You can get a suit of their armor by killing a lone guard (say in the
Waterfront district of the Imperial City) or stealing a full suit from a
sleeping guard (if your sneak skill will allow).

To reduce the required time to level “Spell Cast Speeds” for more information.

Apprentice, journeyman, expert and master skill levels simply make new spells
available to you.

As your destruction skill increase the cost of your spells will decrease by
0.85% per point.

To level this skill cast “Star Light” repeatedly. Holding the spell cast
button in place makes for an easier time when leveling.

Illusion is great for gaining information from NPCs without the lengthy
process of the Speechcraft rotation game or the cost of bribing them. At
Journeyman and higher you gain access to the chameleon and invisibility spells
that can turn any character into a master of stealth.

The light spell provides a nice alternative to a torch however the Night-Eye
spell provides a way to see in dark areas without the risk of detection that
using a torch or the light spell have.

On the combat side Illusion has access to paralyze which is a great equalizer
for a mage character to use against a strong melee character. Very few enemies
are immune to paralyze.

The times above assume you are getting hit 2.5 times a second without breaks.
The number of healing and breaks will affect the time. Enemies and the
frequency of their attack will also affect the time.

Apprentice: You don’t get fatigued drain from having an arrow pulled.
Journeyman: You can now zoom with your bow (by holding block).
Expert: You now have the chance to knock down.
Master: You now have the chance to paralyze.

Like all the melee skills you can’t increase the rate of fire of your bow by
any means.

To level your Marksman skill, find a place where there are a lot of monsters
to hit or summon enemies using your Conjuration or Staff of Everscamp will do
fine. Adjusting the slider difficult will also adjust the health your foes
have which will decrease the number of foes you will have to find or summon.

Because the gathering process of the items will vary greatly from player to
player its hard to make an estimate on how long this skill takes to level.
When I find a suitable scenario I will post an estimate.

Apprentice: You can now sell damaged items at full value.
Journeyman: Shops will now buy any type of object from you.
Expert: You many now invest into shops. Investing 500 gold will permanently
increase the shops available gold by 500.
Master: All shops will have 500 more gold available to them.

Increasing mercantile allows you to adjust the haggle slider further to right.
This is turns allows you to sell your items for more and spend less when
buying items.

To level mercantile steal everything that can be sold for at least 1 gold.
Giving away items to shopkeepers will not increase your skill. Sell each item
individually. Selling 100 arrows in one transaction will produce the same EXP
as selling 1 arrow by itself.

Buying items from shop keepers will not give you EXP and the amount you have
the haggle slider adjusted also does not affect the EXP your earn on each
transaction.

This skill will by far take the most effort and attention to level. It
provides little benefit at any level because joining the thieves’ guild will
provide you access to a fence who will buy all items from your regardless of
your skill level.

To reduce the required time to level “Spell Cast Speeds” for more information.

Apprentice, journeyman, expert and master skill levels simply make new spells
available to you.

As your destruction skill increase the cost of your spells will decrease by
0.85% per point.

To level this skill simply cast “Minor Detect Life” repeatedly. Holding the
spell cast button in place makes for an easier time when leveling.

To level this skill cast “Minor Detect Life” repeatedly. Holding the spell
cast button in place makes for an easier time when leveling.

Mysticism is a must for people who want to enchant their equipment. The
soultrap ability will put an enemy soul into a soul gem that can be used to
recharge an enchanted weapon. It can also be used at the Arcane University to
enchant your equipment and weapons with any magic effect spell you can cast.
Soultrap will is a curse that stays on a target and if that target dies their
soul will be transferred into the smallest gem in your inventory that can
accept the soul.

The detect life spell is great for any stealth oriented character. This
ability allows you to see a glowing mass represents the life-force of friendly
and aggressive NPCs. This effect allows you to see an enemy’s position through
objects such as walls.

To reduce the required time to level “Spell Cast Speeds” for more information.

Apprentice, journeyman, expert and master skill levels simply make new spells
available to you.

As your destruction skill increase the cost of your spells will decrease by
0.85% per point.

To level this skill cast “Minor Heal” repeatedly. Holding the spell cast
button in place makes for an easier time when leveling.

Restoration is very important for any class. Restoration will take longer than
any other mage skill to level. Obviously it will be primarily used to
restoring lost health. At low levels restoration is very inefficient but as
your skill progress it will become much more effective.

Restoration also has spells for the ability to absorb magicka, fatigue,
health, attributes and skills from friendly and mean NPCs. This will reduce
their stat and increase the same stat on your character.

Restoration has spells to cure poisons, diseases, and to restore attributes
which can be very important to “evil” players who have such a high infamy that
they can no longer use the Alter of Nine to restore attributes and cleans
diseases.

Because the success rate of manually picking a lock differs from person to
person I can’t quantify the time it would take for this skill to level.

Apprentice: Only 3 tumblers will fall if you break a lock pick.
Journeyman: Only 2 tumblers will fall if you break a lock pick.
Expert: Only 1 tumbler will fall if you break a lock pick.
Master: No tumblers will fall if you break a lock pick.

As far as I know security provides no per skill point benefit.

To level your security skill, go to the very hard chest in front of the arena
in the Imperial City. Pick the lock until you’ve reached the last tumble then
exit. As far as I know all tumbles are equally difficult regardless of the
lock strength. So picking tumbles on an easy lock provides no easier a time.

Getting the skeleton key will give you with an unbreakable lock pick. It will
also fortifying your security skill by 40 (this will increase the EXP required
to level your skill accordingly unless you drop it). Once you get this key you
will be able to open any lock by rapidly hitting the auto attempt button. The
only reason to further level this skill after this is if you needed to get
points towards raising your agility.

Security will take a long time to reach master level. You may want to pay for
training this skill when you reach higher levels. You can use Alteration as
alternative to the security skill.

Sneak provides no per point benefit to being undetected. It will increase the
success rate of pick pocketing.

To raise this skill level, find an inn. Increase the inn keeper’s disposition
so that he won’t turn and watch you. Find the closest corner and hit auto run
or strap an elastic band to your controller. Make sure to check that your
close enough to gain EXP.

Sneak is easy and quick to level. It’s a great all round skill to have at a
high level, for stealing, pick pocketing and for undetected damage bonus.

The time is based on the assumption that it will take you 3 seconds to tell
a joke (one revolution of the disposition wheel). If you’re faster or slower
then your time will vary.

Apprentice: You will be given the rotate for the disposition mini-game.
Journeyman: The rate at which you lose disposition for being in the mini-game
will slow down significantly.
Expert: The disposition loss for dislike and hate are reduced.
Master: Bribes now cost 50% less.

Each point you earn for speechcraft will increase both your gains and losses in
the disposition mini-game. It will also increase the maximum dispositoin an NPC
can have with your character.

The estimated time is based on the assumption that it will take you 3 seconds
to tell a joke (one revolution of the disposition wheel). If you’re faster
or slower then your time will vary.

Find an NPC and start the disposition mini-game. Spin the disposition wheel
as fast as you can. Your EXP rate is the same if they like you more or less
it does not matter. At expert level if spin the wheel in the one direction
you will not earn any EXP. So don’t hit left, top, right, bottom or right,
bottom, left, top, etc. You’ll have to do something like top, bottom, left,
right or right, bottom, top, left and so forth.

This skill is can be mildly annoying to level. This will make information
gathering easier and it will prevent people with a very high disposition
towards you (say above 90) from reporting you if they see you commit a crime.
They will also defend you if you’re being attacked (even from the Imperial
Legion).

Summary of Skills [H0022] —————————————————-

Combat Class

Armorer Not necessary to raise beyond expert skill rank.
Athletics Raise this as high as you can when you have time.
Blade Have it as high as possible.
Block Have it as high as possible.
Blunt Not as good as Blade.
Hand-to-Hand Not as good as Blunt.
Heavy Armor Have it as high as possible (or light armor).

Blade/Blunt, Block and Heavy Armor are the most essential skills in the combat
class. Blade and Blunt make Hand-to-Hand obsolete because the damage they
deal is far superior.

Mage Class

Alchemy Not a necessary skill to progess through the game.
Alteration Best spells are open X lock and feather.
Conjuration Summon monsters to draw enemies and train skills on.
Destruction Have it as high as possible. The best damage dealing magicka.
Illusion Can substitute sneak and speechcaft.
Mysticism Necessary for enchanting equipment.
Restoration Have it as high as possible. Primarly used to heal.

Mage skills provide you will a wide array of tools for problem solving and
combat. The skills in the mage class on average level quicker than the skills
in any other class.

Stealth

Acrobatics Not a necessary skill to progess through the game.
Light Armor Have it as high as possible (or heavy armor).
Marksman Found the skill to be unnecessary to use.
Mercantile Not a necessary skill to progess through the game.
Security Not necessary to raise very high because Skele Key/Alteration.
Sneak An excellent skill and easy to bring to 100.
Speechcraft Not a necessary skill to progess through the game.

Stealth class skills are some of the hardest to level to 100, but most of them
you won’t need to level (unless you need the attribute points bonus). Of the
7 stealth skills, 6 of them are redundant or non-essential to progressing
easily through the game.

What is the most powerful build? Well, I see two ways of looking at this. The
first is to create the highest level character with max stats (100 points in
all attributes and skills) or create a character that is the most powerful in
relation to your enemy’s strength.

Because enemies in Oblivion get harder in relation to your character’s level
your goal should not be to get to the highest level but to create the most
powerful character at the lowest level.

Every time your gain a character you should be asking, “Are my character’s
combat skills increasing at a greater rate than my enemy’s strength?” If the
answer is no then you should stop leveling because you’re making the game
harder for yourself.

For those who just want to have the most uber character without caring how
strong he is compared to his adversaries then by all means level to your
hearts content.

Max stats and max level [J0001] ———————————————-

Commands in the console will allow you to set your level to as high as 255.
The highest level you’ll probably get is around 53. You can select 7 major
skills and each major skill will start with minimum of 25 skill points. If
you select major skills that do not receive bonuses from your race and are
not part of the specialization you have chosen then you will have 7 major
skills with 25 skill points. This will allow 75 major skill points per major
skill, which is 525 total major skill points. It takes 10 major skill points
to level so that is 52.5 levels or 52 levels ups. Keep in mind that your
character will not be able to level once you have gotten 100 in all your
attributes regardless if you have major skills left or not.

If you happen to max your major skills before your attributes and you still
want to increase your character level go to jail. While you are in jail your
skills points will randomly go down permanently. This allows the opportunity
for your major skills to become reduced and thus you can re-raise those skills
and continue to advance in levels.

In relation to enemy strength this isn’t an effective build.

Max stats by level 40 [J0002] ————————————————

Another view is that since you can achieve max stats by level 38. The only
benefit of gaining the additional is to get the health increase. This
increases your combat ability by a small amount while your enemies get
stronger at a faster rate (this is an assumption because at this time it is
unknown exactly how strong our enemies get per character level).

To get max stats at level 38 you will need to take the thief as your birth
sign and take luck and endurance as your favored attributes. By default all
races receive 320 attribute points, 10 points from the favored attributes and
30 points for taking The Thief as your birth sign. Your grand total is 360
starting attribute points with luck starting at 65.

Since luck starts at 65 you will need to gain a minimum 35 levels. The
maximum number attribute points you can have is 800 (100 for each attribute).
Because you start with 360 attribute points you will need to earn 440
attribute points. 35 points of the 440 attribute points are towards luck
leaving 405 points required in the other 7 attributes. You will earn 11
attribute points per character level for 35 levels. This will generate 385
attribute points requiring only 55 attribute points to earn which can be
done over 4 levels.

The benefit for having luck at 100 is that all your skills will receive a
+20 bonus. Now, if your skills are already at 100 the only skills that will
gain benefit are Acrobatics and Athletics. Remember that skills won’t earn
their skill rank bonus until they’ve actually achieve their required skill
level.

Max stats less luck by level 28 [J0003] ————————————–

This is very similar to “Max stats by level 40” build except you ignore luck.
The Thief birth sign will get you to your goal as fast as the other stat bonus
signs will while providing an extra 10 luck in the end. Because of the way the
leftovers work out in the end we can take luck as a favored attribute and the
other as endurance again.

Because were excluding luck from our equation there will be a maximum of 700
attribute points. We will start with 295 attributes in the 7 attributes that
we focusing on. We will need to earn 405 attribute points to reach our goal.
We can gain 15 attribute points per level which means we will need to level
27 times.

Compared to “Max stats by level 40” we reach our goal 10 levels earlier
meaning we have 100 less health (we’ll still have around 400 health) points
but our enemies are 10 levels weaker. We also lose the benefit of acrobatics
and athletics have the potential of being at 120 skill level constantly
instead of about 104.

If you opt not to take the thief and not take luck as a favored attribute then
you will be required to take one additional level to get max stats less luck.

If opt not to take The Thief or any stat birth sign and don’t take luck as a
favored attribute then you will need gain another level to reach your goal.

If you opt not to increase your personality attribute you can hit your goal at
an even lower level.

Best Stats Possilbe by Level 20 [J0004] ————————————–

Stop leveling at level 20. Why? The best equipment begins dropping here, and
the best sigil stones appear at level 17. You can max at least 3 of your
attributes by level 20. So your core attributes are already as good as they
are going to get. Leveling further will only allow you to increase attributes
that probably aren’t essential to your character and the gain between your
strength and your enemies past level 20 will probably be in your enemies
favor. Some quest rewards will require you to be at least level 30 before you
can get them, this is a draw back for those who desire these particular
rewards which some are very powerful.

Pure warrior at level 8 [J0005] ———————————————-

Get your strength and endurance to 100 as soon as possible. If select Redguard
as your race, The Warrior birth sign and your favored attributes as strength
and endurance then you will start with 65 strength and endurance. This will
mean you only need 35 attributes for each of those stats to get 100 and that
can be done by level 8.

So, by level 8 you can have the hardest swinging character you can get while
your enemies have level 8 health and armor. Keep in mind you can fight Umbra
and take her gear anytime you want as soon as you exit the sewers.

You may also choose one other stat to increase by 35 points. You’ll probably
want to increase agility or intelligence.

If you don’t take The Warrior birth sign then you will increase the levels
require to hit 100 strength and 100 endurance by 2. If you choose Orc instead
of Redguard then you will require another level.

Pure mage at level 10. [J0006] ———————————————–

The idea is identical as the “Pure Warrior by Level 8” build expect your
maxing out your magicka. If you take Bretonas your race, The Mage as your
birth sign and your favored attributes as intelligence and willpower then you
will need 45 attributes for intelligence and willpower and you can achieve
that in 9 levels.

So, by level 10 you can have a 300 magicka pool with the ability to regenerate
300 magicka in about 35 seconds. 300 magicka will allow you to cast pretty
much any spell you’ll want to make in the game and your enemies are still at
their level 10 strength.

You’ll have the option to increase another stat which I highly recommend to
be endurance; however, some may choose to speed.

If opt to take the High Elf and take The Lady birth sign you will require no
additional levels to reach your goal but you won’t gain any additional
magicka advantage.

Max skills at level 1 [J0007] ————————————————

This build attempts to make the most of the enemy leveling system. If you want
a make pick your race and birth sign to correspond to it and if you want a
fighter than do the same. Max the skills your going to use and away you go.

Fighters will suffer about a 25% damage reduction from their potential by
taking this path, but in turn their enemies are 7 levels lower than what it
would take then to get 100 points of strength.

Mages will have to do without the 90 magicka they won’t get from only having a
maximum of 45 intelligence and MRR of about half of they could get if their
willpower was maxed, but with enchants you bring your magicka total up
slightly (the stones that drop in the oblivion gates will be the suck but
they are better than nothing). Compared to the “Pure Mage by Level 10” you’re
not losing all that much to have your enemies stuck at level 1.

Remember to keep your characters at a low level even if you raised the major
skills 100 times you simply don’t sleep. You can rest but just don’t sleep.

There are a few rules that you should try to follow when leveling your
character.

The first rule is to plan how your going to level, because “Failing to
plan is planning to fail”. Get a pen and a piece of paper and take 15 minutes
to list your characters race, birth sign, starting attributes, major skills,
starting skill point totals, etc. Then list what skills your going to increase
at level 1 to get to level 2 to get what attribute bonus then do it for level
2 to level 3 and so on. Once you’ve charted your path then your ready to
put in action. If you don’t plan to power level your characters stats then
planning is less effective but you still jot down a general game plan.

The second rule to always get your x5 bonus in at 2 of your attributes
if your level luck and if your not leveling luck then you should always be
getting the x5 bonus in 3 attributes.

The third rule is to minimize the number wasted skill points you waste on
attributes that you won’t be increasing on your next level up. You’ll can
have anywhere between 5 and 215 of skill points that you can waste. This is
dependent on your race, birth sign and what you’ve chosen as your specialized
and major skills.

You can figure out how many skill points you can waste by taking the total the
amount of points required to level the skills for the governing attribute to
100 and how many points you need to level the attribute to 100. Say you have
50 strength and you Hand-to-Hand is 30, Blade is 40 and your Blunt is 20.
You need 210 skills points to get all your skills to 100 and you need 50
attributes to get strength to 100. 50 attribute points requires 100 skill
points to get to 100. So 210 – 100 = 110 skill points you can waste.

So, as you can see you will generally have plenty of skill points to waste for
an attribute, but if your unsure take 5 minutes to figure it out instead of
finding out 100 hours into the game that you can’t get an attribute to 100.
The fourth rule is that you should increase your major skills after your minor
skills. This is to prevent you from accident increasing your major skills by
10 levels before you’ve increased your minor skills and earned the necessary
attribute bonus for your level.

How Should I choose my Major Skills? [K0002] ———————————

Choosing your major skills may be the most important decision you make when
building your character. Your characters major skills and how you play the
game are the defining factors of how your character will develop his strengths
and sometimes weaknesses. Players who want to power level their character
before they do any significant questing want to pick different major skills
then the players who want to quest while maximizing their gains.

The reason for the different criteria is because a player power leveling until
they reached their goal will be leveling all their skills in a controlled
environment (as controlled as possible) and won’t be using skills they don’t
plan on using. Players who want to level as they quest and still be able to
maximize their gains won’t have that luxury so you want to select the skill
that are most controllable in an uncontrollable environment.

The least controllable skills are Athletics and Acrobatics and should always
be a minor skill. I would almost never recommend taking Security and
Mercantile as major skills because of how tedious they are to level. The most
controllable skills are the ones you won’t be using and that will vary from
character to character and play style to play style.

Now keep in mind that the following are just suggestion and are by no means
set in stone. If you wish to comment you can email me at Myk@accesswave.ca and
tell me about it an email or send me a link on the GameFAQs forum board where
you’ve started or contributed to the topic (I prefer the forum).

***ATTENTION**** I’ll say it again, PLAN AHEAD. If you’re going to power level,
define your goal stats and plan out you’re leveling path. The effort you put
into take the time to do this will pay for itself 100 fold.

I want to power level all my skills to 100 [KA000] —————————

AKA “Max Stats at Max LevelLevel 40Level 28”

Power levelers who want to get all their skills and attributes to one hundred
will want to take stealth as you specialization. Your major skills will be
Mercantile, Security, Marksman, Acrobatics, Speechcraft, Restoration and
Armorer. The reason being is all the skills I listed are skills that will take
you the longest to level as minor skills.

I didn’t include Athletics simply because it’s uncontrollable in any
environment (are you really going to play with run off?) and the fact it can
leveled over several nights ala autorun. Like Athletics, Sneak can be leveled
without any effort.

I want to power level only my essential skills [KA001] ———————–

This major skills for this strategy is somewhere between “Max Stats by Level
28” and the “Best Stats by Level 20” builds.

There are some skills which are not essential to having because of their
minimal impact on the game or the skill is out classed by another. The skills
that probably can be completely ignored or leveled only to get the attributes
that govern them are Mercantile, Security, Acrobatics, Speechcraft, Marksman
and Hand-to-Hand. These skills should only be leveled if you need to earn the
attribute points or they are at such a low level that it’s still easy to level
them.

Alchemy is a skill that makes money and provides benefits that magicka schools
don’t, it does level reasonable easily so it can be used towards attributes.
Heavy Armor and Light Armor conflict with each other but because these skills
level so quickly they are key to increasing their governing attributes easily.

Lastly Armorer has the most benefit at expert skill rank. Unless you really
want to only have to carry 1 hammer around with you then you won’t to bother
power leveling the skill. Just wait for it to happen naturally.

For this build I would take Combat as my specialization and take Blade,
Blunt, Block, Restoration, Destruction, Mysticism and Illusion as my major
skills. One alternative skill is to take Armorer and replace Block.

Making block a major skill can complicate the leveling process slightly as you
will have to keep careful track of what major and minor skills you’ve
increased during that character level. If your armorer skill while building
heavy armor or light armor you may need to compensate by leveling an apporiate
minor skill.

Using the set of major skills and ignoring the “not essential” skills I
outlined will greatly reduce the time required to power level your character
to your desired goal while keeping him nearly as functional as the build that
wants all of their skills at 100.

I want to power level a low level fighter [KA002] —————————-

When I say low level I assume you don’t plan on going past level 12-13,
because if you want to go past level 13 you might as well go to level 17 for
the transcendent Sigil Stones. If you’re going to go to level 17 you might as
well go to level 20 and get this best gear drops. And if you go to level 20
then you can probably just use the advice from “I want to power level only my
essential skills”.

This follows the “Pure Warrior” build.

The idea behind power leveling a specific class is that once you’ve hit the
stats that define your characters profile you can stop leveling. You don’t
have to stop if you don’t want to though.

The skills you want to have at a high level are Blade, Heavy Armor,
Restoration, Marksman, Sneak/Illusion and Block. The attributes we want high
are Endurance, Strength and Speed/Agility. Choose combat as your
specialization and as for your major skills you can really only need to worry
about getting your Blade and Blunt as major skills. Your other major skills
can be Alchemy, Hand-to-Hand, Speechcraft, Destruction/Conjuration/
Alteration.

You’ll want to focus on blade then blunt first while using heavy armor/armorer
and sneak/marksman to level their governing attributes. By level 8 and as late
as level 12 you should had meet your goal for a low level fighter.

I want to power level a low level mage [KA003] ——————————-

So you want to build something like “Pure Mage”?

To get the job done as quickly as possible take The Mage as your
specialization and take Destruction and Restoration as your majors skills.
For the rest of your major skills you can take Hand-to-Hand, Blunt, Sneak,
Speechcraft and Alchemy. Your core attributes for this build will be
Endurance, Willpower and Intelligence/Strength/Speed.

There are enchants that enhance your magicka total. This means intelligence
isn’t necessarily that important to a Mage player. You may choose to
substitute it for you next favorite attribute.

As you level Restoration/Destruction you will be leveling Mysticism/
Conjuration and Heavy Armor/Armorer. Doing this will allow you to easily reach
your goal stats. The “Breton as Mage” is an example that closely resembles
the style of leveling you would probably do with this character.

I want to play a fighter character as I level [KA004] ————————

Choosing major skills for this style of play can be seen as, “What skills will
I be using?” or a better way to look at it may be, “What skills won’t I be
using?”. You also won’t skills that aren’t painful hard to level. So for major
skills I would take Alchemy (Use restoration instead of potions), Sneak and
Speechcraft (Illusion covers both skills), Hand-to-Hand because you can use
Blade or Blunt. You’ll have to choose Destruction/ Marksman, Heavy/Light Armor
and Conjuration/Alteration/ Mysticism.

For this style of play I would recommend the following as your major skills
Alchemy, Speechcraft, Sneak, Hand-to-Hand, Destruction, Alteration and Light
Armor.

Once you’ve increased your minor skills enough to get the attribute bonuses
you desire then you can take some time off from questing and level your major
skills.

I want to play a mage character as I level [KA005] —————————

The same ideology that applied to the fighter character applies here. Take
skills that you’re not going to use as your major skills. For your
specialization you can choose Mage if you want to level quicker or Combat if
you want to level slower. The major skills should be Hand-to-Hand, Heavy/Light
Armor, Blade/Blunt, Marksman, Speechcraft, Sneak and Alchemy/Mysticism/
Alteration.

I want to play a thief/assassin character as I level [KA006] —————–

Don’t take light armor, sneak, illusion, blade, alteration or security as
major skills. That is all. Seriously though, this class really is essentially
a Fighter with respectable Illusion/Sneak and Alteration/Security. In this
game a Thief is a Fighter but you play with the mindset that you’re a Thief
and you do Thief things.

I want to role play my character [KA007] ————————————

Simply specialize in the skills group your going to make use of most and as
your major skills take the skill you will be using the most as well.

Fighter’s will specialize in combat and take Blade/Blunt, Block, Heavy Armor,
Restoration, Marksman, Armorer and Athletics.

Mages will take Destruction, Conjuration, Restoration, Alteration,
Blade/Blunt, Illusion and Heavy/Light Armor. I’ll recommend heavy armor over
light because you’ll want the health but taking light armor will get you more
speed.

This is what I would recommend but for role players it’s just that play your
role and choose your major skills accordingly (just don’t back yourself into
a corner).

Breton as a Mage [K0003] —————————————————–

For our example we will be using a Breton as our race and take willpower and
intelligence as our favored attributes. For our birth sign we’ll take The
Mage.

For the purposes of this character we will assume we are going to purely power
level this character and ignore doing anything significant before your desired
stats are achieved. All are damage dealing training can be done in the comfort
of our inn/home by summoning monsters via Conjurations/Staff of Everscamp.
Feel free to train wherever you want though.

Major Skills

Hand-to-Hand, Blade, Marksman, Destruction, Block, Blunt are all skills that
require combat to level and they are generally skills that require the most
concentration to level. I prefer spend the least amount of time leveling these
skills.

Restoration is the last major skill and will probably take the longest to
level out of the major skills we plan to level to max.

Minor Skills

Athletics and Sneak are automated so you don’t need them to level any faster
that they do as minor skills.

We’re at level 10 and met the “Pure Mage Build by Level 10” criteria. We have
around 200 health, 300 magicka and regenerate 300 magicka every 35 seconds or
so and our enemies are at level 10, sounds good.

Ok, so you want more attribute points and health. Let us see where the next 10
levels take us.

If you’re happy with your characters stats at this point, now is not a bad
time to stop leveling. The benefits is that 3 of your key attributes at 100
(intelligence, willpower, endurance) and strength is at 90, speed at 80 (+20
speed = +6.6% faster movement) but agility is still a bit low. This means you
may get knocked down more often than you like if you’re going toe to toe with
enemies often and your damage with your bow will be 25% less than its
potential, but your damage with ranged magicka will surely suffice.

At level 20, the equipment that you can find on your enemies bodies is the
best you can get (ie. Glass Armor) and you will also be able to get the best
sigil stones at level 17. The quest reward quality however, does not cap at
level 20. It is at least level 30 before some of the quest rewards stop
getting better. So if that high level quest reward gear is something your want
then you’ll need to continue to level.

I’ve listed what the attribute and skill totals are at this point. The only
half decent attribute that isn’t at 100 is agility (agility’s usefulness is
debatable). But the important thing to see is that I have tons of skill points
left over, meaning I could of wasted a ton while leveling. Below is a list of
the left over skill points:

Ok, so I’m at level 26 and pretty much at max stats, but because I raced to
level certain attributes to 100 in this example, it forced me to level my
attributes unevenly. When increasing most or all of your character’s attribute
to 100. You should try and keep the attributes you are leveling as even as
possible (or plan it out on paper before you start). This is so you won’t
run into the problem I’m having here were I’m placing attributes into
personality and luck (which is a pretty is a waste if you want to keep your
character level as low as possible while having your combat attributes maxed).
Leveling your desired attributes evenly will prevent you from taking
unnecessary character levels to reach your goal.

The information comes from oblivion.esm released version, edited with the
TES Construction Set tool.

Some weapons appear several times in the tables. They are leveled rewards from
quests. The level is determined when you complete the quest with the NPC, not
when you complete the task. For instance you can initiate the quest at whatever
level, do everithing required but not the final talking to the NPC, and
complete it at level 25.

(1) Seems a blunt weapon, but specified as a blade.
(2) Unenchanted but ignores normal weapon resistance.
(3) This sword is a real killer. Even if it looks unenchanted, it ignores
normal weapon resistance. And as a “temporary” quest item, it weights
nothing (not 44). A very good choice before you can get a hand on Umbra.
(4) Umbra is by far the best melee weapon. On top of having the best DPS,
it has a Trap Soul enchantment, and combined with the Azura Star, provides
an unvaluable way to recharge your weapon enchantments continuously.

(1) Elven War Axe with the speed and reach of a mace, and as a consequence,
a very low DPS compared to the level requirement.
(2) Mace with the damage, speed and reach of a warhammer, and as a consequence,
a very high DPS compared to the level requirement. Feel happy if you are
lucky enough to get a hand on it, at least before any patch 😉
(3) Not a real quest reward, but a unique leveled drop in a single location.

Blunt 2H [RA003] ————————————————————-

There are two types of two-hand blunt weapons: Battle Axe and Warhammer.

At the very beginning, the warhammers have a slightly higher DPS. When reaching
the steel weapons, both have the same DPS.And later on, the battle axes have a
slighly higher DPS. A poor category like the two-hand blades.

The speed information is totally irrelevant, except the fact it tends to prove
all bows have the same speed. The 1.00 speed allows for about an arrow shot
with no bend every 1.75 seconds. The inflicted damage depends on the time you
bend the bow, and also on the arrows you use. As a consequence, the calculated
DPS is not accurate and remains in the table just for consistency.

The above formula can be applied to bows by interchanging agility for strength
(although it hasn’t be tested thoroughly). A weapons base damage can be 1.2
when it only shows 1 or 2.7 when it shows 3. So be aware that what you think
the weapon base damage is, may not be what it really it.

Hand-to-Hand is 1 + (Skill/100 * Strength/100 * 10).

Armor Stats [R0002] ———————————————————-

Light Armor [RB000] ———————————————————-

Heavy Armor [RB001] ———————————————————-

Armor’s Impact on Spell Effectiveness [RB002] ——————————–

The only thing that will reduce your spells effectiveness is the armor you’re
wearing. The higher your skill with the armor type you’re wearing the fewer
penalties you will suffer. With armor set to 0 and wearing a full suit of
armor. Your spell effectiveness will be 70%. Removing the helm, boots and
gauntlets will increase your effectiveness by 2% each, removing the greaves
will increase effectiveness by 3%, removing the chest piece will increase your
effectiveness by 6% and removing your shield will increase your effectiveness
by 8%. With your skill level at 25, your spell effectiveness in full suit will
be 83% and at a skill level 50 will be at 95%. 95% is the maximum spell
effectiveness you will receive in a full suit of armor. The penalties are
identical between heavy and light armor.

Lv – Indicates the level the NPC is set to. If there is a + or – this means
that its level is adjusted to yours by either +x or -x. So if your level 10
and its modifier is -2 then its level will be 12. = means that its level does
not change and thats what it is.

Here is some useful and some useless information about the games mechanics
and various bits of information that couldn’t fit easily anywhere else.

Effects that Affect Your Movement Speed [L0001] ——————————

Your speed and athletics levels will determine your maximum speed.

Your speed will be the fastest in the following order naked, cloth, light
armored then heavy armored. And no weapon equipped, weapon sheathed, weapon
drawn. Clothes and Robes reduce speed from 0.1-1% per piece. Sneak running
reduces your speed to 60%, to walking 33%, sneak walking 20%, weapon drawn to
90%

Exploits and Tricks [L0002] ————————————————–

Using some of the techniques here may be consider exploiting the game and may
be consider a clever trick. It’s up to you whether you’ll use the information
here.

Once you gain access to the Arcane University you can make your own spells.
You can create spells that will lower any skill to 0. If you do this and speak
to a trainer of that skill there will be no cost to purchasing that skill.
Once the spell ends you will have gain the skill levels.

How to raise your Armorer skill to 100 with little effort? Find an Ayleid
Statue and either sell it to a vendor or find Umbacano and sell it to him your
self (may require speaking to people and learn that he’s a collector).
That’ll begin the quest chain. When Umbacano dies you can loot the crown from
his body which would show up broken and it doesn’t have its durability listed.
Because it doesn’t have it durability listed you can repair it an infinite
amount of times or until reached your desired Armorer skill level.

You can enchant 5 pieces equipment with 20% chameleon each which gives you
100% chameleon total. This essentially breaks the game.

To get your desired Sigil Stone save before you enter the Sigillum Sanguis.
Then enter the room. I previously stated that you could save just before you
opened the container, but apparently the loot is generated upon entering the
room not opening the container. To quickly check the stone cast invisibilty
and run to the container and grab the stone. After the “… sigil stone picked
up” message appears you can open your inventory and check the stone. Depending
on your stone you can reload or keep going.

If the guards/enemies aren’t following you but your still in combat you can
type player.payfine to get out of it. This will also pay off your bounty if
you have one.

Magicka Regeneration Rate [L0004] ——————————————–

Your MRR is directly related to the amount of magicka you have. If you have
100 magicka or 400 magicka, X willpower will take the same amount of time to
regenerate 100%, 50% or 36% of your magicka. So, the more magicka you have the
greater your MRR will be and the more willpower you have will also increase
your MRR. Doubling your total magicka effectively doubles your MRR. Taking
willpower to increase your MRR may not be better than increasing your total
magicka by increasing intelligence.

Increase EXP rate for Magicka School [L0006] ———————————

Spells with different gestures have different casting speeds. All self cast
spells take 2.1 seconds per cast, all touch spells take 1.33 seconds to cast
and all target spells take 1.42 seconds to cast.

This can be quite useful information because when you gain access to the
Arcane University and you’re able to create your own spells. This means if you
don’t want to fight enemies to raise your destruction skill you can make a
self cast destruction skill. If you’re using a self cast spell like heal minor
you can reduce the casting time of that spell and effectively reduce the time
it takes to level. Making a touch version of the heal spell will increase your
EXP rate by 57% and a ranged version will increase your rate by 47%. You’ll
still need to find a NPC (friendly or foe) and it works best if your spell
doesn’t make your friendly NPCs aggressive.

It was also pointed out that holding block would increase the casting speed.
I did a test an confirmed it. On a self cast spell the increase was about 25%.
Touch and Target have at this time been untested.

The Miscellaneous of the Miscellaneous [L0007] ——————————-

The armor cap is 85.

Glass Armor is the best light armor.

Daedric Armor is the best heavy armor.

Umbra can found at in an Ayelid Ruin called Vindasel. Southwest of the
Imperial City.

At 0 the damage is increased by 6x the normal amount and at 100 its reduced by
6x when compared to the 50 (default). The amount of damage you take will be
similar. At 100 you will take 6x the damage and at 0 you will take 6x less
damage (16.50% of 50) when compared to the default setting.

Admittedly, I only tested 0, 50, 100 for damage taken and after seeing the
mirror results I concluded that it will be the same for everything in between.

Ugh, the attribute systems sucks, I want to have FUN! [L0009] —————-

Does the attribute increase system got you down? I feel your pain and a lot
others do. Whats the most important part of playing a game like Oblivion? Its
to have fun. Fun for some people is different than others. Some just like the
adventure, some just like the character building and most fall some where in
between. The attribute system can prevent people you have a bit of attachement
to stats or don’t want to get the short end of the stick 50 hours into the
game.

Picking major skills incorrectly or based on preference can end up hurting
your character and therefore hurting your experience. The system is somewhat
counter-intuitive as if you think about it the best descisions for picking
major skills are usally comprised of the ones you don’t want to use. That
a certain perspective that doesn’t make much.

There are solutions for those who feel this way or at least at least
understand where I’m coming form. Here is one solution that is pretty
controversial, it involves getting a mod. The mod gives your character the +5
attribute choice to all your stats when you level up (or simply increase
them accordingly in the console.

When I first read this idea I said, “PSSH! That’s cheating and it will ruin
the game”. But after reading this idea several time I decided to give it a
whirl. To my surprise I found it to actually be more enjoyable. I was able
to take the major skills that I wanted to take beacuse it fit my character
build. I no longer had to worry about pathing my skills to get the
right attribute bonuses. I didn’t have to stop my adventuring to do some
mundane exercise just to get the attribute bonuses.

I felt guilty though. I was taking an unfair advantage to all you honest
gamers. I felt I need to balance the scale in some way. I needed a handicap
that most players wouldn’t have. The difficulty slider was the solution.
Adjusting this to the right will more than pay for my advatange. Adjusting the
slider 5 times to right reduces the damage dealth by 33%, 5 more times to the
right reduces the damage dealth by 50%. I took 10 points to the right, but its
really up to you whether you choose to even adjust the slider.

For those who are immediately opposed to do this, I’ll ask you sit back, think
about it and try it. You just might surprise yourself.

These are topics and pieces of informatoin that I want to add to the FAQ at
some point but haven’t had the time/motivation to write/research.

Add NPC Monster Stats

Add Armor Stats

Add a list of Staffs

Add a list of Arrows

Add a list of effects for Enchanting and Spellmaking

Add the appropriate trainers under each skill

Quantify:
per point effect of increasing Agility (for knock down resistance)
per point effect of increasing Personality (how it affects haggling)
per point effect of increasing Block (block damage reduction)
per point effect of increasing Mercantile (how it affects haggling)
per point effect of increasing Sneak (for pickpocketing success)
per point effect of increasing Speechcraft

Find a good estimate for time to level Alchemy
Find a good estimate for time to level Mercantile
Find a good estimate for time to level Secruity
Find a good estimate for time to level Armorer

v1.02 – Corrected skill bonuses listed for High Elf
04/26/2006 – Corrected spelling of Brenton to Breton
– Noted that there are some quest rewards that require your
character level to be at least 30
– Correct information about the health gain during level up. Stated
previously that 10% bonus was determined before you choose
which attributes you were increasing when it is actually
determined afterwards.
– Added information about intelligence under Summary of Attributes
– Corrected the information about how your attribute bonuses are
applied when you level
– Added the Dragonskin ability to the Breton race sheet
– Corrected information concerning the correlation of major skills
and how the affect your attribute bonuses for leveling
– Appended a 1st and 3rd rule to “Rules of Leveling” section
– Added “Things Planned” section

v1.03 – Updated acrobatics with an estimate on leveling time
04/27/2006 – Updated acrobatics with the per point affect on fall damage
– Corrected information about the Sigil Stones exploit/trick
– Moved information about spell casting speeds to the section
“Spell Casting Speeds” and appended additional information
– Added a new section “Weapon Damage Per Second” and merged
Calculationg Weapon Damage with new section
– Added new section “How NPCs Scale with Difficulty”
– Added new section “NPC Combat Stats”

v1.05 – Added “Wood Elf as Fighter/Archer” section
05/01/2006 – Included all the races profiles
– Included all the birth signs
– Created New Section “Equipment Information” and mereged some
sections under “Miscellaneous” under it. Most of the information
was provided by Nilwarp.

I want to thank Scy046 who had a hand in most of the numerical and technical
information in this FAQ by either confirming it, correcting it, making it
more accurate or presenting entirely new information.

Thanks to Azala for giving insight on how acrobatics levels and how to best
do it. He provided additional technical insight and corrections as well as
writing the specific uses and benefits for all the magicka schools. In
additional to that he provided information for a lot of other little parts
of the FAQ.

Nilwarp for correcting a few mistakes I had throughout the FAQ, pointing out
the information about quest reward levels and putting intelligence into a new
perspective. He also provided all the weapon stats information.

vashutstampedo who notified me that holding block and casting spells would
decrease the casting time and therefore increasing the amount EXP you could
earn. For some reason I believe two people notified me of this with in a
similar time period. But I did lose some of my emails unfortanetly and would
like to credit whoever else sent me the information.

The following people have made correction to the FAQ Kaushik Goswami,
Vismund and Tirkon.

Also thanks goes to anyone who I forgot to mention, who thinks they deserve
thanks and to those who don’t deserve but ask for it anyways.